


Sky Gazer

by zhoujo10



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Suicide, Did Shisui Have Them, Gen, Probably inspired by that line from Haikyuu with Shimizu?, Regrets, Shisui-centric, Short, Short One Shot, You know if you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhoujo10/pseuds/zhoujo10
Summary: There’s a moment, after you fall - you’re focusing hard, you’re thinking about something else, and then there’s a thump and a disorientating impact and you’re looking up towards the sky -Oh.I must’ve fallen.---In which Shisui wishes that he took more time to watch the clouds go by.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	Sky Gazer

Shisui had fallen many times in his life.

Tripped over, when he was young. When he first started, he had shunshin-ed himself into many tree trunks and considered his face fairly well acquainted with the texture of wood.

You stop falling over so much when you get older, apparently. You tumble around as a child, flipping and slamming into various surfaces until you learn how to balance and your knees stop being permanently covered in scrapes and bruises.

Shisui could find some things wrong with that - for a start, he’d argue that he fell more when he got older, even if it was just because he found himself sparring more often with a formidable opponent.

Practising high level kata and then misplacing a foot and finding himself swivelling directly into the ground’s embrace - a branch being a little less sturdy than it sold itself as being and sending him into the leaves below before he could catch himself.

A spar with Itachi, too focused on countering the blows that came and trying to find a way to disarm the other of his kunai before a sweeping leg came and clipped his ankles before he jumped, knocking him back into the dusty ground - but that was a fight, even if it was just a spar, and he had taken advantage of Itachi’s instinctual triumph at getting the opponent to the ground.

Shisui slashed at his ankles before getting back on his feet faster than any of them could blink and allowed the sparring to resume, settling steadily back into the rhythm of a fight they had fought many times before.

Still. There’s a moment, after you fall - you’re focusing hard, you’re thinking about something else, and then there’s a thump and a disorientating impact and you’re looking up towards the sky -

_Oh._

_I must’ve fallen._

You think, watching the clouds drift. There’s pain, the breath has been knocked out of you and there might be bruises the next morning. Sometimes you’re a bit too tired to get up and sort of just wanna lie there and watch the clouds go by to catch your breath.

Sometimes Shisui finds himself wondering if it would be nice if he could find himself in this position without having taken a tumble, lying on the ground and watching the skies for fun rather than on accident.

He never did brand himself as a skygazer. There was never enough time in the day for lying down and watching time pass; training to be done, Itachi to meet, a family to earn money for and an enemy to defeat.

Maybe occasionally glimpses of peace could be stolen out the window, windy days of azure skies could be appreciated.

But after the rhythm of a fight is interrupted, the sheer concentration on the development of a new skill - the sky always seems brighter than it’s ever been whether it be clouds, rainy days, clear skies.

Even snow, tumbling down on one day far in his past that he barely remembers - the cold in his limbs and a giggle still rasping in his breath, the gray sky so bright it hurt his eyes.

He’s always gotten up.

Obviously, you can’t just lie there forever after tripping over no matter how pretty the clouds are.

Itachi offers a hand on another time they spar and Shisui accepts his defeat and takes it - his mother picks him up from the snow and brushes him off. He picks himself up for the rest of the times, rubbing his sore nose where he slammed it into a tree, pressing gingerly on the aching part of the back of his head, nursing a gash from an enemy shinobi that he managed to kill with some struggle.

He picks himself up again.

And again.

Because as Shisui keeps telling himself, after a fall - there’s no time for sky gazing.

There’s more to do.

It’s never been a bad thing, really, training’s always useful, Itachi’s always a delight and there’s nothing he’s owed his mother more than enough money to live on. So you just have to pick yourself up eventually and brush yourself off and make sure you’re presentable and ready for the world once more.

But recently it’s been a bit more difficult, he will admit.

He’s never really wanted to fall before, it’s really a lifestyle that’s more comfortable with choosing you - and it’s not really a choice that he tends to make when he kisses the dust of training ground 16, nor something he likes to do in front of Itachi, it’s really quite difficult to seem like the suave older sibling you try to be from the low ground.

But on a day like this - when your family’s been planning a coup against the village you love out of their bad judgement, a man gouges your eye out and simultaneously kicks aside any hope you had for your solutions and plans for peace - it’s really hard to feel like picking yourself back up.

Because that would just mean facing everything again, reassessing and grabbing your bearings again to soldier on while waving off any injuries you might have sustained. Getting back up meant nursing your wounds and carrying on and picking up and shouldering all the responsibilities you had dropped when you fell.

And that had really become quite difficult.

\---

As it turns out, there’s a moment after you fall and it’s been found that it seems to happen no matter the height you fall from.

It’s not as though here you’re not focusing or thinking about anything else; you’re trying to clear your mind, ignore the pain from your eyes and keep a fine expression on your face that you can only hope is encouraging and push the guilt from overwhelming you for just a few more moments.

You’re falling, and it takes a bit longer than you remember it taking, and then there’s a mind splitting, disorientating impact and you think you’re looking skyward as you plunge into the deep, thrown around by the current and everything in your mind seems to be going through a violent haze and your body is burning with pain, water throws itself down your throat and everything is shutting down.

And then the current seems to ease, you find the surface but no breath is drawn and the crisp air is on your face and you think -

_Oh._

_I_ _must've fallen._

There’s no need to get back up; you couldn’t even if you wanted to.

You’ve finally got all the time in the world to watch the sky, the clouds go by and for the last ebbs of your mind to fade. You’ve got all the time left in your life, albeit short, to watch the stars emerge from nothing, the setting sun on the horizon and the purples and pinks and oranges that make up the unique heavens of that day.

But there’s only void; matte darkness and slowly numbing pain where his eyes once were.

…

Shisui never did brand himself as much of a skygazer in life. But he wishes he took the time to watch the sky and clouds and time go by more often.

Maybe Itachi wouldn’t have minded accompanying him, sometimes.


End file.
